The Audacity of Mustard
by Chris Widger
Summary: For one shining moment, she'd had it all. Post-ep for 5.08 App Development and Condiments


_For one shining moment, she'd had it all._

Britta Perry had never really wanted that much out of life. She wanted to be a good person, she wanted to make a difference, she wanted a modicum of respect, and yes, she wanted to be loved. Though she was keenly aware that the last one was more than a little contingent on her being able to love herself.

Okay, so _maybe_ 'Review-lution' was a dumb name for her mustard-smear-fueled overthrow of the caste-based social-app-built tyranny that had overtaken Greendale over the last week. _Maybe_ she had been a bit overzealous in her efforts to replace the so-recently-toppled order with a new one of her own based on total-app-based social equality. And _maybe_ the beret was taking it a step too far.

She sighed loudly, the realization overtaking her that her face was smeared with mustard, and it was all for naught.

"Okay," she said to the deserted bleachers, strewn with refuse and countless non-recyclable plastic baubles, "I get it. I'm the wor-"

"You're not, you know."

"-st…Annie?"

Annie picked her way through the rubble of Britta's shattered dreams (wow, way to be overdramatic, Perry). She was holding out a few napkins, and wearing her scrunched-up Sympathetic Face. "Thought you could use these."

Britta picked herself up with a sigh, hopping down to floor level. "Thanks." She took them gratefully and began scrubbing at the drying mustard. Unfortunately, without a mirror (she refused to carry one in her purse on principle), she was pretty sure she'd only managed to smear it further into her hairline. A quick swipe of her hand confirmed this.

"Let me," Annie offered, and Britta sat down roughly on one of the lowers bleachers, pulling the beret off her head. There was a bit of mustard on it as well. She tossed it on the ground in disgust.

Annie wet the napkin and began wiping off her cheek. Britta closed her eyes and tried to imagine a world where she didn't have to smear mustard on her face and overthrow an entrenched – okay, maybe 8 days didn't qualify as 'entrenched,' but it sure felt like more and _oh_. Annie had started rubbing her temple and she felt some of the stress drain out of her.

Annie was saying something now, and she looked up. "What?"

She was smiling. "I said that you did a pretty good job, really. Who knows how long this would have gone on without you?"

"Jeff did most of the work," she groaned.

Annie laughed, and her nose wrinkled in that adorable baby-piglet way it did. "All Jeff did was bring the whole thing down out of spite because he was losing again. You were actually trying to fix things, and you did!"

"I got carried away," Britta said, despondent. Her moping was slightly interrupted when Annie started cleaning her nose.

"Um, Britta, we _all_ got carried away. The whole school. Again." Annie paused. "It does seem like that happens pretty often, now that I think about it."

"There was paintball…and then the other paintball…and the other one, though I don't remember that one so well."

"You were concussed," Annie reminded her. "And there was the pillow war."

"And the lava."

"And there was the time that Chang went power-mad and took over the Greendale and had us all expelled."

They looked at each other. "This is a weird school," Britta admitted.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's even a school," Annie said under her breath, a little bitterly. "I keep forgetting that Jeff is actually a teacher. And I'm in his class!"

"Admit it, Annie, you haven't stayed here…and then come back, because of the school."

Annie finished wiping Britta's face, then frowned. "No, but Greendale isn't all there is, Britta? I've given almost five years and more money than I probably have to be here and…what's it gotten me?"

Britta tried to come up with an answer, but staring at the dark and deserted and utterly trashed cafeteria, it was harder than she thought. "Friends?" she finally offered.

"Well, yes."

"Hey, good friends are nothing to scoff at," Britta said, trying to sound all thirty-ish years of her age.

"I know that," Annie said, sitting down next to her. Britta found her pulse speeding up at the sudden closeness. _Oh no_, she told herself. _Not now._

Oblivious to her plight, Annie laid a hand on her arm. "You're a good friend, Britta."

She swallowed. "Am I?" It was probably true that Annie was the closest female friend she had ever had, but if she was honest, that was not saying much. At times they seemed to spend more time fighting than talking. They always had something to prove. If not to each other, then at the expense of each other.

Annie smiled in that sweet, warm way she had. All of a sudden Britta found herself confronted by those damn Bambi Eyes. Saying no to those Bambi Eyes was like kicking a one-eyed cat. "You are," the Bambi Eyes insisted. Well, the Annie _with_ the Bambi Eyes. "And you're a good person. And I don't think you hear that often enough."

Britta's brain was screaming at her to say something, but her brain wasn't working. The Bambi Eyes had got her good this time.

"You were really brave, you know? I just…well, this whole thing started, and I just committed myself, you know, the way I do. And it just kept going and going and going and I knew that it had reached a point where I needed to throw the brakes on and get off this ride…probably around the time that Chang became a 5, really, but…I'm not very good at letting people down." She shrugged. "And Shirley was counting on me, and I was a 4 after all, so I wasn't doing badly, even if I was a _bit_ annoyed not to make it to 5 but I suppose I wasn't really trying that hard after a while. I'd found my role, you know? Britta?"

"Huh? Oh…yeah, right, of course."

"Sorry, I got a bit carried away there," she said, smiling nervously in a way that made a colony of butterflies erupt in Britta's stomach. "I was trying to make you feel better, obviously, and then I just started talking about myself. Silly Annie."

"You aren't silly," Britta finally managed. "You're great. And thanks for the…you know, mustard, napkin…that." She wasn't sure she could actually say 'thanks for wiping mustard off my face' to a girl almost a decade her junior.

"Awww!" Britta suddenly found her arms full of Annie Edison, whose hands were rubbing up and down her back affectionately, which made Britta's mind go completely blank for a moment. She'd barely had time to move her own arms when Annie pulled back, Sympathetic Face on full display.

"Of course, Britta. You looked like you were having trouble." Annie bent down and picked up the discarded beret. She eyed it critically, an odd glint in her eye. "You know, this looked really great on you."

Britta almost did a double-take. "What?"

Annie giggled slightly. "It was really cute."

"Thanks?"

"In a good way, I mean." Britta realized that Annie was blushing. It was adorable. Everything she did was adorable. This was a girl who could make being passed out on the floor and drooling look adorable. And last summer after another job application rejection letter she had, and it had been one of the most unfair things Britta had ever witnessed in her entire eventful life. And she'd been tear-gassed at a Greenpeace rally!

Annie was doing that (adorable) thing where she tilted her head back and forth, nervously waiting for a reply. Britta just stared back.

Annie rolled her eyes (adorably), leaned forward (adorably), and kissed her gently on the cheek. Britta froze.

Annie got up, smiling strangely. "Come on," she said, offering a hand. "Jeff was right about one thing: it's Saturday evening, and we're still in school. Let's go get a drink at the Red Door."

Britta took it, still slightly dazed. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Maybe she hadn't lost _everything_ after all.


End file.
